I am a gay nurse practitioner on the frontlines of COVID-19 who joined TikTok in 6/2020 (@thatsassynp) and my content has mainly been COVID education, which has turned into a lot of misinformation debunking. 

As you would expect, the trolls came hard. 

I am a very sassy, blunt person so naturally I choose to respond to some of them to debunk the misinformation - oftentimes with attitude. 

I started having videos removed after calling someone out who was claiming health departments were coercing physicians into changing death certificates. The next video that was removed was one where I called out ageism and survivorship bias. The third video came down when I responded to someone telling me "my kind will never reproduce". None of these videos violated any guidelines, and I bombarded TikTok on Twitter, via Feedback messaging and through email. I received ONE message saying my content would be looked at by the "Trust and Safety Committee" and several videos were restored the next day (no follow-up). Since then I've had videos muted calling out homophobia (although TikTok left the homphobic video up for days) and a recent video before it was even posted where I was calling out a creator spreading misinformation about COVID vaccines. Despite multiple messages again to TikTok, I have heard nothing. 

Ever since this has happened I feel like my account goes through periods of the always talked about "shadowban". Whether or not this is true is another story, but I know for a fact that there are several people who make an effort to report things they don't like - simply because it's spreading facts and/or calling people out for their ridiculous comments and misinformation.

What really annoys me is that while MY content gets inappropriately removed, TikTok allows blatant misinformation to run rampant on the platform - despite having a reporting option (like COVID-19 misinformation). Why on earth would someone with medical training who is spreading truths about medical issues be censored, while those spreading dangerous misinformation are not? Why are people able to insult my sexuality, my profession and me, but yet I cannot defend myself using the platform? It's wrong.

I am at the point where I am becoming fed up with TikTok. They are not supportive of creators. There is very little transparency and there is next to no follow-up whatsoever. They are penalizing the wrong people and rewarding those that do not deserve it.

It's time for TikTok to STEP IT UP. We are over it.